Dakini

By Kavita Rekha Jain

She was a free soul. Her choices were scattered on dusty roads. She locked her painful experiences inside a closet and left her home to wander the world.

 

The dark night failed to scare her. She couldn't admire the shining stars enough. She trusted roads more than people. Roads didn't hurt her. Roads didn't judge her.

 

She found herself trapped inside an infinite loop of hatred and humiliation. DAKINI is the story of an unbreakable curse. It is the journey of a very wise person who chose to transform a black pit full of negativity into a golden ball of light.

 

DAKINI is the story of someone who didn't carry a sword. But she was a warrior.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kavita Rekha Jain
• Release date: Aug 31, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223157472

Book preview

Dakini

Kavita Rekha Jain

Published by Kavita Rekha Jain, 2023.

This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

DAKINI

First edition. August 31, 2023.

Copyright © 2023 Kavita Rekha Jain.

Written by Kavita Rekha Jain.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Dakini

FOR MY DEAREST MUMMY

                  AND

   MY PRECIOUS SARIKA

Dakini

Ihave always felt that journey is more important than the destination. While walking on roads, i never felt the need to be sure that i will definitely reach somewhere. I walked wherever the roads took me. I loved doing that. It had a kind of freedom, a kind of adventure and a kind of innocence attached to it. It didn’t have logic. It was not a part of my school syllabus. It was my way of learning. It helped me feel the world quietly. It helped me find out more about myself. It made me breathe from every pore in my skin. It liberated me. So, i walked and walked and felt that i was living a complete life. I knew nothing else would make me feel like this.

But one day suddenly, i had to stop and look around. The destination had become more important than the journey.

When i was in school, i used to carry a ten rupee note in my pocket for emergency and that note remained there for a complete year. I didn’t feel the need to use it. I walked on roads with that note in my pocket. It made me feel safe. In college, i carried the money i needed for my bus travel expenses along with that ten rupee note in my pocket. I didn’t have an extra rupee and it was still fine. But now, all of a sudden, i felt insecure even when i kept hundreds of rupees in my wallet. I felt unsafe. I needed more money to keep that nagging feeling of apprehension away from my mind. I didn’t want to purchase anything. But i needed to have more money in my pocket and this was when i started fearing my journeys. My journeys took me to faraway places and i was scared if i will manage to return home with the money i carried with me. What if the bus broke down and i needed to hire a cab late in the evening? While growing up, i was not perturbed by this feeling. The distance didn’t matter to me. I was strong. I could walk long distances. I could do anything to return home. I was cent percent sure that i will find my way.

But now, i was not so sure of myself.

Perhaps i was getting old. Perhaps i was getting tired of the journeys...

I was born in a well-kept, respectable and a safe house. I didn’t have many memories of my early childhood. I remembered the colour of paint changing on the walls every fourth year. I remembered moving from school to college. But the house remained the same. People, relationships, priorities and desires changed in life. But my house remained the same. It stood quietly between the cluster of houses. Amidst the vast ocean of a rough world, it was the one place where my memories took refuge.

The house belonged to my parents. They gave it to me.

Now it belonged to me.

I remembered all the exams in school and college and i remembered all the corners inside my house where i sat and prepared for my exams. I could do anything at home. I could sit anywhere. I could touch anything. This was why homes were special. Homes were different from libraries. You couldn’t speak inside a library. I remembered studying in a public library in the second year of my college. Our house was getting renovated that year. I needed a quiet place to study for my exams. I hated studying in the library. Everything was so formal there. Libraries lacked the warmth and the familiar smell that only a home possessed. My home preserved the person i was and the person i wanted to be.

My mother walked inside the rooms, humming her favourite songs. My father sat in the balcony when it rained and sipped his favourite tea. Every weekend, we went to the local market together and ate ice-cream. Everything, everything that i ever had and everything that i ever wanted to have, breathed inside that place.

That place was my home. It was my world.

I hated fights. Fights troubled me. I witnessed them everywhere. People fought with each other on roads and inside their homes. It was painful. More than the ‘actual fight’, it was the constant sense of a void, of something always remaining incomplete that bothered me so very much. I didn’t like incomplete things. I liked happy endings. But that was the paradox. Only very few journeys were fortunate enough to have a desirable end. If you liked the journey, then you liked it just like that. You couldn’t afford to be stubborn about the destination. You kept moving. You kept going. You could stop anywhere. But you needed to remember that you will have to start again from where you stopped.

My parents couldn’t cross the road before the traffic lights turned green. I started cooking for myself from that day. I started searching for a job from the next day. Everything was so funny. I figured out the busiest occasion in a person’s life when my parents died. My world was flooded with sympathy at the cremation ground. It was highly irritating. People were determined to not leave me alone. They hugged me and told me foolish lies. It was their idea of making me feel good. Frankly, i needed a break. I went for a walk.

I was not alone. My parents were always with me. They guided me when i walked on the roads. I felt their presence deeply. I didn’t know what happened to people after death. But i knew that my parents were with me. I knew that i was never going to get lost. I knew that i will find my way back to home. Often, tears welled up in my eyes but i held them back. I promised myself that i was not going to cry for my parents.

I remembered one incident distinctly. When i was five years old, on a pilgrimage, my parents lost me for fifteen minutes. There was a huge crowd. People were pushing each other. I was pushed away from my parents. I was lost for a total of fifteen minutes. I didn’t panic. I knew my parents were looking for me. During that time, i stood still in one visible corner. I knew there was no way i was going to be lost. I was completely sure of that. The crowd was growing with each minute. Someone pushed me hard. I couldn’t help falling. I was too small. Someone picked me and placed me on a side rock. I could see in every direction from there. I could see my parents looking for me. They found me. They were crying. I knew they suffered badly during those fifteen minutes.

What could you do if life constantly puts at stake that one thing that was your only hold on tangible life? What could you do if life chose to punish you at every step? What would you do if you couldn’t live and you couldn’t die?

I knew the answer.

You continued to exist.

I was far away from home. I didn’t know how very far it was. It was far enough for anyone to be lost. It was a rocky terrain. For as long as i could see, there were only rocks. The rocks were huge. I saw myself standing in the gap between the rocks. I was looking for a way out from that place. The sun was very hot and my skin was burning badly. I needed water. I was thirsty. I needed to get out of that place. I had a sinking feeling that it was impossible to get out of there. I was never returning home. I started running. I ran as fast as i could. But the rocks never ended. There was not even a single person anywhere. I was alone there in that terrifyingly alien place and i wanted to go home. My mind was telling me that everything was lost forever. It was telling me that it was THE END. I looked around. I could actually hear the echo of the words i was thinking. It was indeed THE END. My nerves were bursting. I was lonely. I was lost. I wanted to go home.

I woke up dreaming that horrible dream many times that year. It terrified me so much that i was scared to sleep. I didn’t want to sleep because i knew the dream will return. I could still see myself sitting on my bed and thinking that it was only a dream. I was inside my home and i was safe. I was not getting lost ever. I knew all the addresses and every single route by heart. There was no way i could forget my way back to home. It was simply not possible. It was only a dream.

I started job as a salesperson. My job was to sell detergent powder door by door. Every morning i carried the big bag on my shoulder and left home. My neighbours watched me keenly as i made my way forward in life. My work was inconsequential but they were more than willing to understand me. They sympathized with me. They gave me smiles. I refrained from smiling back. They understood me. People didn’t smile when they were mourning. I wanted to tell them that i wasn’t mourning. I was being myself. Things happened and you couldn’t always control them. My parents were always with me and i had my home. I met